Hundreds of children of Soviet personnel stationed in Syria evacuated by Soviet troops

Will Poland's recent strike fever spread its infection to Yugoslavia? Initial reports from Belgrade seem to indicate that the end of the strikes in Poland was greeted with visible relief by Yugoslav leaders. However, industrial circles still fear that a backlash of the Polish strike wave is bound to convulse Yugoslavia in the very near future. So far Yugoslavian workers have resorted to limited strikes which never lasted more than a day or two.

But there have been drastic changes in the employment situation in recent years. Since 1965, an estimated one million unemployed Yugoslavians made their way to western Europe in search of jobs. But because of the recent recession, most of them have found their way back to join the swelling ranks of the unemployed. Added to this is the 30 per cent rate of inflation, soaring prices and unavailability of certain items.

All these are volatile elements that spell trouble for industrial peace. Intelligence reports, however, suggest that the authorities are resorting to police surveillance of more militant trade union activists, in an effort to defuse any possibility of another Poland-like situation in their country.

Puzzling Exodus

Sadat, Carter and Begin: Another summit to boost poll chance?

A curious operation took place in Damascus early last fortnight. Hundreds of children of Soviet personnel stationed in Syria were suddenly evacuated by Soviet military transport aircraft.

A week later, the wives of Soviet and East German personnel followed in the same manner. Puzzling as the exodus is, the official Syrian line on the evacuation has been largely disbelieved. The reason given is that the authorities were afraid that their lives would be endangered by local insurgent groups.

This theory does not hold water for the simple reason that the Soviet families had stayed on in Syria at a time when insurgency was far more intense and widespread than it is now. The most likely theory, according to intelligence sources, is that the Soviets were in: formed that Syria, aided by other Arab states like Libya, was on the verge of launching a military operation against Israel. It is possible that the Soviets were advised to evacuate their families before the operation was launched and Israel retaliated.

Bomber Boomerangs

The Carter administration's deliberate "leak" of the super-secret Stealth bomber seems to have boomeranged rather badly. The plans for production of the bomber, allegedly capable of evading enemy radar, were initially fed to selected correspondents as a ploy to inflate President Carter's re-election aspirations (India Today, September 16-30). Since then, however, the unnatural publicity which America's defence plans have attracted is causing more embarrassment to the Carter Administration than anything else. It is now known in intelligence circles that the Stealth bomber is still only a crafty gleam in the Pentagon's eye.

Intelligence sources say that the Stealth project is currently still in the preliminary design stage and the actual contract for building the aircraft has not yet been given to any of the major American aircraft manufacturers. Sources, however, state that the Pentagon's efforts to develop an aircraft capable of evading enemy radar is a logical extension of any advanced country's defence planning. But Stealth contains no major scientific breakthroughs and is essentially a refinement and combination of existing technologies.

The US has built a small prototype using these technologies which has been test flown. The basic science behind the Stealth project is the development of a small bomber (the smaller the plane, the weaker the radar echoes) with complex curved lines, delta wings and no protuberances - all of which lower radar echoes considerably.

The final development is in the structural coating of the aircraft which will reflect less radar energy than conventional metals. Carbon and graphite-based materials have allegedly been used in the Stealth prototype. Sources say plans for a manned, intercontinental bomber which combines these techniques is on the Pentagon's agenda, but is still very much at the drawing board stage. In that context, US Defence Secretary Harold Brown's contention that the Stealth bomber would "alter the military balance" seems little more than wishful thinking.

Search For A Panacea

With President Carter and electoral rival Ronald Reagan running neck to neck in the latest US opinion polls, the Carter Administration is desperately in search of a dramatic event to give the president the edge he so badly needs to beat Reagan in November.

According to intelligence reports. Carter supporters in the White House are making frenetic efforts towards one such event - a headline-grabbing three-way summit that will bring Carter, Egypt's Sadat and Israel's Begin together for a Camp David type summit just before the US presidential elections. Despite the reported rift between Sadat and Begin, both leaders are said to have come to a private agreement on the vital question of Palestinian autonomy.

If a summit were to take place, other details could be worked out later. Apart from the obvious US desire for staging a summit at this point, Sadat himself is keen on one, though for highly ironical reasons. He is concerned that a Reagan victory - a highly likely prospect - would postpone settlement by at least a year.

For one, the Reagan administration would take that long to consolidate its domestic position before moving into unknown waters. But more important to Sadat is the fact that nobody is quite sure which way Reagan will jump over the Middle East question. In Begin's case, a solution of the Palestinian question would allow him to urge US Jews to vote for Carter, thus putting the American president in his debt if the latter wins.

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